Angua Von Uberwald, A Lycanthropic Compromise
by Gogol
Summary: More angsty snapshots in time, the subject being our very favorite angsty werewolf. Of course. Forgive me. Also, I keep changing the title! Sorry 'bout that.


I.

Serafine was screaming again. The pup on the floor cocked her head, listened. There were no words, only barking half-speech, loud, guttural, foul. Delphine Angua von Uberwald closed her eyes and wished for quiet, wished her mother would let her concentrate on the softer world of scent, detached from sullying humanity.

Her mother would have said: We are werewolves, not beasts that fear voices. Her mother would have slapped her. Delphine held her tongue, did not taste the air.

At arm's length Serafine gripped a bundle of fur, who would never be more and who cringed at her curses.

Andrei.

II.

Seven-year-olds are not well suited to subtlety. What's wrong with Andrei? said (growled) Wolfgang, golden and smiling, his grubby human paws still furred, proof of his duplicitous perfection.

I don't know, said Delphine lightly. She hefted a stick in her white hand, threw it. Catch, doggie!

Don't call me that, Wolfgang said. Or else. But the threat came out garbled because of teeth clamped over wood. He spat it out, disgusted. I'm going to ask Mother about him. It's not normal.

Maybe so, she replied, but her thoughts were of playing catch, with a brother who would appreciate the chase.

III.

When she came, Elsa was not so much a disappointment as a fulfillment of grim expectations. No more, said Serafine, her voice like iron, while in her crib the baby opened blue eyes and saw, a tell-tale gesture. I will bear no more children if they are to be filthy _yennorks_.

Guye shrugged one huge shoulder and stomped outside in silence, leaving his cloak inside, as he did too often these days.

The twins stared down at her.

We were never that helpless, Wolfgang said after a moment, and for once in her life Delphine agreed, because it was true.

IV.

The fire ate its way through the empty, abandoned stables and the cellars and most of the eastmost wing. An accident, someone's pipe left burning in the hay. And a catastrophe, for a family that could be killed only by silver and flame.

They did not find Elsa until night had fallen and smothered the blaze by sheer heavy darkness. She was almost unrecognizable, but who else could it have been, that tiny corpse? No one knew why she had been in the stables. Unhappy chance: the wrong place, the wrong time.

Wolfgang lied, when she asked. Lied, and smiled.

V.

Andrei ran the next night. He was never a fool, Andrei, for all his canine grin and friendly tongue. Perhaps he was the wisest of all of them. He saw murder in Wolf's face as soon as, even before, Delphine, that was certain. Murder changes people, and wolves have eyes for change like nothing else, not counting death.

Perhaps he was the wisest of all of them. But…

A sheepdog in Borogravia, thought Delphine, closing her eyes and wishing that werewolves had gods other than the false inconstant moon. A sheepdog.

At least he's safe.

VI.

It was only a year after that she was invited, with Wolfgang, to come with her on a real hunt. A Game, in fact.

She went with the rest, willing enough, even happy in this opportunity to leave her mind in the dust and all its complex shames, trading it gladly for teeth, snout, claw, belly, tail; for hunger. She was so very alive, young and strong. She reached the quarry first. His thigh crunched between her jaws, sweet rich blood filled her.

Filled her and choked her. She was human before she knew what was happening, and sobbing, because the smell was dead Elsa's.

VII.

There were beatings, after that, and still more shame. Sometimes – often – she forgot or succumbed or simply could not resist the haze of red that enveloped her at all such times. On those days she feasted, left dozens of deaths in her wake. People she knew the names of, on occasion.

Delphine was naturally stubborn, though she had no pretentions to morality in her struggle, at first. She did it because otherwise she would choke on ghostly little thighbones, badly charred. So she learned to like the cabbage and tolerate the bruises.

And when the time came she fled.

VIII.

Civilization was crueller than wilderness to the werewolf, Delphine knew, staggering out of a bar with a sloppy, exhausted grace. So many smells and sounds and sights!

Every country girl thinks that when she comes to the city, she thought bitterly, but most don't have the urge to tear it all to pieces. Delicious! Chickens were tasty and inadequate. At home she'd needed one every two weeks or so at most. In the cities, there were feathers on her pillow, between her teeth, at every passing moment.

She'd tried Pseudopolis, Sto Helit, Sto Lat. She'd been run off. Next? (Last?)

Ankh-Morpork…

IX.

Delphine was tired. There had been gates and guards and a brief misunderstanding resulting in injuries on the part of the latter.

Now there was a poster.

It read, in slightly desperate, lopsided letters: Be a Manne in the Citie Watche!!

She hadn't been able to get a job. It wasn't as if she lacked for money – unlike most runaways, she'd had the foresight to bring a good deal of gold and practice her menacing smiles beforehand. But… she hadn't been able to get a job.

What did she have to lose?

Quite a lot, she decided, cheerfully, and went.

X.

You're hired, damned if I know why, said Captain Vimes, when he'd finished asking a few perfunctory questions. Name?

Delphine, she almost answered, and stopped. She didn't know why. She'd always been Delphine. On the other hand, that was the point, wasn't it? She wanted a _new _life.

But what about those bits of her past she wished to keep? What about her siblings?

Her middle name would do. It was new enough; old enough. A sort of... compromise. Lycanthropically appropriate.

Angua, D-Angua said.

Angua, eh? Angua it is. Welcome to the Watch, haha. Corporal Carrot will show you around.


End file.
